Well I'm sitting here alone listening to the rain hit my roof, which it has been doing ALL day, reflecting on my day. It has been a crazy day. With company coming this weekend, I started with getting caught up on the laundry. The kids laundry baskets, along with my own were overflowing. I went up to Keaton and Sam's room to put away some stray socks, and found a mess that has been building for some time now. So in order to find the dirty clothes which were scattered amongst the toys, I began cleaning and throwing away things that I was sick of picking up. I always had a little resentment towards my mother for getting rid of my toys. I would have liked to still have some of the special ones and share the memories with my kids, but now I totally see why she got rid of them. You get so tired of picking up the same toys day after day that you really don't care how much money you spent on them or that donating them to good will would be a better option, you just want them gone! So in the garbage they go. The kids will never know anyway. They have so much stuff right now it's ridiculous! So after cleaning and vacuuming all the rooms up stairs, I spent the rest of the day folding laundry, dusting, polishing, and vacuuming, the main level and finally the basement. I then have only 45 minutes until I need to pick up the kids from school. Today was Thursday, which means piano lessons for Amber, Ben, and Sam. From 4:30 to 6:00. I just remember that Amber needs a doz. bars to take to the dinner and vocal concert at 5:45. So I walk into the kitchen to grab a box of brownie mix out of the cupboard and find Keaton on the floor with my bottle of furniture polish. He has sprayed it all over the floor. He says "look mom! I'm cleaning the floor!" Now some people might see this as cute and "oh he's being so helpful", I didn't see it this way at all. He stands up and being bare-foot falls flat on his butt! It was an oil furniture polish that is not to be used on floors. So I almost fall down trying to get to him and pick him up and carry him out so he doesn't track it everywhere, and then I get to spend the 45 minutes cleaning off the floor so people can walk in the kitchen without slipping and sliding everywhere. That was not easy to clean up let me tell you! So after I pick up the kids in the pouring rain, and after I take Sam to his piano lesson, I run to Hy-Vee to see what I can find at the bakery. They had some carrot cake bars! Perfect! I go pick up Ben and Keaton from the house, drive to the high school to pick up Amber from Jazz band practice, take Ben to piano, pick up Sam, drive home to let Amber change and grab a bite to eat and take her back to the high school. I pick up Ben from piano, take them all home, fix dinner, go do the chores in the rain (Bret's on call) put the little boys to bed, grab my camera and head to Amber's chorus concert. She wants me to record their performance. It was nice to hear some nice music, I wish I could've sat down, I got there after it already started and it was a packed house. It was 6th through 12th grade chorus groups so lots of parents. I had to park pretty far away and run in the rain to the school. Needless to say I was pretty wet when I got to the school. It was very stuffy in the auditorium and me in my rain jacket and couldn't really take it off. I was sweltering, standing in the back trying to record with people walking back and forth in front of me. I must say I wasn't enjoying myself. Finally I'm home all the kids are in bed and I'm looking forward to a good night sleep. Well as good as I can get with Bret's pager going off all night. Gotta love call nights!

These are our 4 children. Samuel-7 Benjamin-12 Keaton-4 Amber-15. We love our children dearly, and There's never a dull moment when all of them are home. Keaton is our little destruct-o. He's managed to break quite a few things in the house in his four short years, including a huge hole in the wall from a falling TV that he pushed over, a pantry door, a CD player, and the list goes on and on. Sam is my little sweetheart, Ben is the clown, and Amber is my drama queen. They all have different interest, Amber loves music. She plays the piano, the trombone, and the clarinet. She is in Marching Band and the Jazz Band, also chorus, and she tries out for the musical every year and always gets a part. She loves going to church activities and loves reading and shopping. Ben loves to play soccer. He's really quite good, he's fast and has good ball skills, he makes the game exciting and scores goals every game. He is also learning to play the piano and plays the trumpet for the middle school band. Sam is also a little soccer player although not quite as aggressive as his older brother. He likes to have fun. He started taking piano lessons this year and so far likes it. He likes to draw, paint, cut, and paste just about anything. He's always making something out of paper or cardboard. The desk off the kitchen has been designated as Sam's desk, because he's always at it. Keaton, besides destroying things, loves to play outside. He started his first year at soccer this year and I thought it might be fun to try coaching, so I have six little 4 year olds to try to coax into playing a soccer game. Keaton being one of them. Most of the time he just likes playing in the goal netting usually getting his foot stuck. He likes to play with his trains, and especially with his big brothers.
We have a lot of fun in our home, Listening to Bret's funny and exciting hunting or ER stories at dinner, playing with the dogs or chickens, eating the apples off the apple trees, looking for frogs or snakes in the pond and tall grass, feeding the big orb-web spiders grasshoppers, or playing with the cars and truck in the dirt tunnels under the porch. We have a lot of friends and family over, especially during the hunting seasons, and it's so fun to play with Aunts and Uncles and cousins. There's always something going on and it's makes life exciting, and even though I like my down time sometimes, I wouldn't have it any other way!

Welcome to the Shire. Now I know I need to explain the title of this, and for you 'Lord of the Rings' fans I might not need to. It all started when in 2007 we moved out of our home in the country to move into a rental house in town while our old home was being moved into town so we could live in that while we build a new home in the same place. So we had the old place in the country, the rental house, and the old house that was moved into town. We also have a few places out in the country where Bret has bought some land. It got a little confusing when we needed to go to one of the many places for any reason. Bret is a 'Lord of the Rings' fan so the many places we own are named after some places in the movies. Our home place out in the country was named "The Shire" so I thought it was a fitting title for our blog spot. I'm new to this so I hope I can make it interesting for all those who might take a peak at it.